Psycholinguistics

The structure of the brain

Frontal lobe motor

Temporal  hearing
Parietal  sensing
Occipital  seeing
 The Brain Structure & Function
 Shaded areas  where
language works for speaking
and listening
 Brain damage in (1) Broca’s
area affects speech
production while (2)
Wernick’s area affects speech
comprehension
 (3) motor cortex ‘control
movements of the
muscles’(4) arcuate
fasciculus ‘connecting
Wernick & Broca’
 The Localization View
The Transfe Prepa
word rred via red to
heard arcuate
via fascicu be
Wernic lus to produ
k Broca ced
Right-left brain function
 Speech Disorder
Slips of the tongue and ears
 “use the door to open the key”, “you
have hissed all my mystery lectures”,
black bloxes, a tup of tea
 Spoonerism  William Spooner
 Errors of articulation ‘results’ from
slips of the brain
 Listened as great ape for gray tape
 Some mothers or some others
Aphasia
 Language impairment/disorder
 Cause : stroke & brain damage
 Broca’s aphasia/motor aphasia
agrammatic speech  grammatical
markers are missing, lots of hesitation
and pauses  production disorder
 Wernick’s aphasia/sensory aphasia 
fluent speech, difficult to make sense
and find the correct word,
 Aphasia
Broca’s aphasia
Motor aphasia  effortful
speech  agrammatic speech
I eggs and eat and drink coffee
breakfast
Lots of hesitations and pauses,
difficulties in articulation
Comprehension is better than
production
Wernick’s aphasia
Sensory aphasia  auditory
comprehension
Fluent speech but no sense
Difficulties in finding correct
words  anomia
I can’t talk all of the things I do,
and part of the part I can go
alright, but I can’t tell from the
other people
 Dichotic listening
 General fact  anything on the left side is processed in the right
hemisphere
 Assumption  a signal coming in the right ear will go to the left
hemisphere, and vice versa
 Experiment  two different sound signals are given to both left and
right ear at the same time. The subject more often correctly identifies
the right-ear sound (right ear advantage)
 Why?
 Language acquisition
Language comprehension
Language production
 The Acquisition Schedule
One-word
Cooing-
stage
babbling
12-18
4-8 months
months
Two-word
Telegraphic
stage
speech

“
18-20
2-2,5 years
months
Developing
Developing
syntax
morphology
18-40
2-2,5 years
months
Developing
“socio- Developing
pragmatic” semantic
competence
 Producing Speech

device •Organ of speech

•Mind

language •Form
•Meaning

process •Selecting word

•Integrating words